NetSuite gets TalkTalk

Another bit of Carphone Warehouse takes the online road

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NetSuite is putting itself to something of a public test with the recent announcement that TalkTalk Direct, the Carphone Warehouse-owned communications and free broadband provider, is using NetSuite CRM+ as the management platform for customer support.

This gives NetSuite another tranche of the Carphone Warehouse portfolio, having already taken on the Opal Telecom Division last year and the Business Solutions operation earlier this year.

TalkTalk has already rocked the boat of the UK's broadband service provision, not least by buying up AOL's UK customer base. As a consequence, AOL has also retrenched its customer support back to Ireland, leaving it without UK-based customer support.

This inevitably puts more pressure on the management of the support infrastructure at Carphone Warehouse, which is already threatened with a £50,000 fine from regulator Ofcom for making "silent" calls to customers.

With more than 500,000 free broadband customers, TalkTalk has become one of the largest broadband providers in Europe and its business model - line rental and international voice calls for £20.99 a month together with unlimited free 8 Mbit broadband access - has forced the rest of the industry to examine the way they charge for services.

The consequential growth in call centre traffic led the company to standardise customer services and fault management operations with NetSuite, a decision largely based on the online service's speed of implementation and the elimination of lengthy IT development. ®